After a break to focus on other projects, Riverside are back with their eighth album, ID.Entity. But instead of revisiting the melancholic sounds on 2018’s Wasteland, their latest finds them embracing their 80s influences. Vocalist and bassist Mariusz Duda tells Prog why it was time to break the formula and rekindle the band’s passion for pop.

Words: Johnny Sharp Images: Radek Zawadzki

Riverside, L-R: Michał Łapaj, Mariusz Duda, Piotr Kozieradzki, Maciej Meller.

Mariusz Duda grins ruefully over a video call from his Warsaw studio as he explains the series of creative diversions he’s made over the past four and a half years from the band he made his name with. “Maybe I should admit: I was tired of Riverside’s music. I was tired of this formula. I was tired of being in this kind of rock band.”

Enter stage left something of a blessing in disguise, for him anyway: a global pandemic.

“When lockdown happened, I was grateful, I was happy,” he says. “It meant I could stay home, simply stop touring and be with my family. And then I also had the chance to finish the most recent Lunatic Soul record and focus on different projects – something very different from Riverside.”

He’s not kidding. After Lunatic Soul’s Nordic noir moods and acoustic folk textures were brought to bear on 2020’s Through Shaded Woods, Duda turned out a quick-fire triptych of solo LPs (plus an EP last year) over 2020 and 2021, which blended techno beats with piano melodies and ambient soundscapes.

“I always wanted to experiment a bit with electronic music,” he says. “So I focused on that, and spent a long time working on music on my own.”

That in turn, however, informed his next creative step, as absence from the band setup made his heart grow fonder.